Australian sun lures in the Brits

Press Release Summary = With at least 1.3 million resident Britons, Australia is theleading destination for UK expats. And many of those who go say they won\'t be comingback.

Press Release Body = With at least 1.3 million resident Britons, Australia is theleading destination for UK expats. And many of those who go say they won\'t be comingback.

Australia is a lifestyle superpower. The stunning climate, the celebrated beaches,the foaming surf, the carefree joy of tossing a marinated shrimp onto a glowingbarbeque.

No wonder that so many Brits dream of making the fabled \'Lucky Country\' theiradopted home. Australia certainly has it problems. There are water shortages, surprisingly highrates of depressive illnesses and a real gambling habit. But they do not appear toloom large in weighing the well-known pros of an Australian existence with theless-publicised cons.

Better still, the Australian government is being particularly welcoming right now toBrits with the right qualifications wanting to live the Aussie dream.

With a population of just 20 million people, the economy faces a chronic skillsshortage. To sustain its present levels of growth, the economy needs an influx ofskilled workers - skilled workers who ideally speak fluent English. With Britainoffering that pool of labour, it is a win-win for both parties.

So Australia has been welcoming British skilled workers in record numbers over thepast three years.

In 2005, 21,780 UK nationals left Britain to settle in Australia, a 30% rise on theyear before. The number has doubled over the past three years. Three out of every four migrantswho arrive here from Europe are British, and for the past three years the UnitedKingdom has been the major source country for migrants coming to live in Australia.

Australia\'s point-style system of immigration, soon to be adopted by the UK itself,acts both as a bridge and a barrier.

Workers with trades and skills, from electricians and plumbers to doctors andmechanical engineers, are given additional points and priority processing by theAustralian Department of Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs(DIMIA).

Workers lacking the correct skills - like journalists, for instance - have to findothers routes of entry, such as being sponsored by an Australian company or fallingin love with an Australian partner or spouse.

Immigration laws have also been relaxed to allow foreign students at Australianuniversities to settle in the country if they can arrange a job for themselves aftergraduating.

Shaun Quigley and his wife Rachel emigrated to Cairns, Queensland, almost five yearsago, and have not regretted it for one moment. With a family of three, they areconvinced Australia is the ideal place to bring up their children.

Shaun works as an air charter broker for Independent Aviation, a position hedescribes as his dream job. Rachel is a physiotherapist. \"Rachel first came herewhen she was in her early twenties as a trained physio,\" says Shaun.

\"She got about the maximum score under the points system. She literally walked intoa job and got residency in Australia.\"

Rachel\'s hospital has been particularly active in recruiting Brits. This October,when a hospital in Stoke-on-Trent announced job cuts, it moved quickly to offerposts to laid-off staff. After placing advertisements in the local paper, whichattracted a hundred applicants, 84 people were eventually offered posts.

\"Cairns is hardly the big smoke but it\'s pretty idyllic,\" says Shaun. \"There\'s nograffiti and you never hear about knifings and stabbings. We even made the mistakeof leaving our front door open when we went home for five weeks to Britain.

\"When we got back things were just as we\'d left them.\"

Dr Peter Logan moved to Australia in March last year. An accident and emergencyconsultant, he had grown increasingly disillusioned with the National Health Serviceback in Britain and decided on a new life in Queensland.

His wife, Sarah, an intensive care nurse, is Australian, and they now plan to spendthe rest of their lives in her homeland rather than his. Thanks to hisqualifications, getting a job in Australia was straightforward. Queensland welcomesBritish medical care staff with open arms. Only the other day, Peter was working inthe Accident and Emergency Department of the Royal Brisbane Hospital alongside threeother Brits.

\"There\'s definitely been a marked increase in UK doctors showing up in Queensland,\"says Peter. \"I think my peer group is pretty disillusioned with the state of thingsat home [in the NHS]. \"The pay is about 15-20% better and that buys you significantly more. Back home, allwe could afford was a box on a housing estate.

\"Recently, we have just bought a big plot of land, 20 minutes from the centre ofBrisbane, where we now plan to build a house with its own pool. We can even afford aprivate education for our two children.\"

He admits there are downsides to living in Australia. \"Obviously, we are a long wayfrom home, and even though I get to see more of the children now, the children don\'tget to see much of their grandparents. \"The culture here is slightly homogeneous.You can\'t nip off to Paris for the weekend. And I really miss old architecture,walking past a medieval church.\"

Relaxing at his home overlooking the ocean just after completing a round of golf,Andy Griffiths described how his new life differed from his old. He worked as ayouth and community manager in Derby, where he was the victim of assault in theworkplace and a victim of crime at home. He is now an assistant manager at theNational Geographic store in a Sydney suburb.

\"Compared to life back home, this is idyllic,\" he says. \"We sometimes look at thewebsite of the local paper back home and see all the assaults and all the vandalism.You don\'t get any of that here.\"

Andy\'s wife, Lesley, is a nurse, and interviewed for a job on a four-way conferencecall while sitting in her dressing gown on a cold night in Britain. Some 80% of thenurses that she works alongside at her hospital in Sydney are immigrants.

And the most interesting thing to about all of the people we interviewed? None ofthem plan to return home.